


Caged

by SpectralBabe



Series: Mystery, Inc: Private Detectives [1]
Category: Scooby Doo - All Media Types
Genre: College, Crime, F/F, Mystery solving, Scooby Doo AU, real-world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:27:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22481017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpectralBabe/pseuds/SpectralBabe
Summary: When Velma receives a call from Boston Police Officer Red Herring she takes up the opportunity to solve the Gang's first crime not involving a mask. MIT students are going missing from campus without a trace. However, when the Gang gets in too deep one of their own is put in danger.This fic is written like your favorite television crime-drama.Trigger warnings: short descriptions of blood; guns; drugs.
Relationships: Velma Dinkley/Luna
Series: Mystery, Inc: Private Detectives [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1617481
Kudos: 5





	Caged

Fred walked into the apartment and tossed his backpack on the floor. “Sup, Shag?” 

“Oh, like, nothin’ much,” he responded absent-mindedly. His attention was on a soil test. “How was class?” 

“They still don’t seem to appreciate the real-life experience I’m bringing.” 

“Not everyone can be crime-stopping geniuses.” Shaggy frowned at the soil test and made a note in his notebook. 

“Reah! Rime-stopping rengiuses!” Scooby chimed in. 

“They don’t believe we have a talking dog either.” 

“Rog?!” 

“Do you still think you’re going to drop-out?” 

“Dropping out of Triple C seems like a step too far for my pride to recover. I’ll stick it out for the semester and then we can go visit Velma in Massachusetts.” 

"We haven't heard from her in weeks, Fred. Do you, like, really think we’re going there for the summer still?"

Fred shook his head, dropped onto the couch, and cracked open a beer. He shrugged at Shaggy. “I just don’t know what to expect anymore.” 

College had been particularly hard on the Gang. Fred and Shaggy had elected to get an apartment together and attend Coolsville Community College. Fred was majoring in criminal justice while Shaggy studied horticulture part time. Velma, on the other hand, had received a full-ride to MIT and flew out of Coolsville on the first flight she could book. Daphne had also left to follow her passion: fashion. She was attending the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. They hardly saw each other by the beginning of sophomore year and rarely managed to be in Coolsville at the same time. 

Fred’s phone started ringing. Speak of the devil. 

“Hey, Velma, what’s up?”

She looked tired, as though she hadn’t slept well for a few nights. Her hair was messy and her clothes rumpled. In the background, Fred and Shaggy could see her bed covered in papers. Typical for most college students, perhaps, but not for a Dinkley. “I need your help.” 

“Like, with what?”

“Girls on campus have been going missing without a trace. The police haven’t been able to find them. No activity on their credit cards, their phones, absolutely nothing. The third girl went missing last night.” 

Fred looked at Velma and Shaggy. “Well, Gang, looks like we have a mystery on our hands.” 

Velma met Fred, Shaggy, and Scooby in the parking lot. “Daphne will drive in from New York in a few hours.” 

Scooby and Shaggy stretched and shook themselves out. “That five hour ride was killer.” 

"God, I think this will be the first time the Gang's been together this year," Fred said. 

"It's going to be great! Well, considering the circumstances," Velma responded.

"Like, how did you find out about this anyway? There's no monster or ghost or anything we would usually deal with." Shaggy and Scoob both gave Velma a  
skeptical look.

"There is a monster, Shaggy. They just might not be wearing a mask this time. I got the information from an acquaintance on the Boston Police Force." Velma  
paused and looked at Fred for a minute. "You'll never guess who it is." 

"Uhhh, I don’t know. Gibby, maybe?"

"No."

"Alright, just tell me. I honestly have no idea."

"Red. Herring."

Fred's jaw dropped. "Velma! Don't you see?! It's him! It has to be Red Herring. I knew there was something not right about that guy and he's finally done it! And  
we're going to catch him!"

"Freddie, stop. It's not Red Herring. Officer Herring employed my help when he heard I had moved to the east coast. He’s working to solve the case." 

"But it could be him," Fred argued. Then he muttered, “All cops are bad cops.”

Velma rolled her eyes. "I can’t disagree with you there but it’s not Red Herring. C'mon. Let me show you my dorm room." 

Velma lived in a single in McCormick Hall. She had decorated it with neutral tones, succulents, and whiteboards for scheduling. The absurd number of tablets, drawing tablets, and presence of two monitors made it look more like a mad scientist’s laboratory had been built in Bed, Bath, and Beyond. The majority of the wall by her bed had been cleared and used to tape up information, crime scene photos, evidence lists, and victim profiles. 

“Allow me to present our mystery.” The Gang seated themselves on the bed and nodded. “The three identified victims so far are Okechuku Udo, Alicia Bernard, and Ofelia Reyes. Udo is a third year student majoring in mechanical engineering. Her friends and parents described her as an intelligent, outgoing young woman who loved her studies. Her boyfriend of two years described her similarly. He was out of the state at the time of her abduction and has a solid alibi so he has been ruled out as a suspect. Any questions?”

“Like, yeah, Velma. How do we know these women didn’t just, like, run away?” 

“I’m getting there Shaggy. Next, Bernard. She is a first year student majoring in Linguistics and Philosophy. She was described as a bit of a party girl and there is evidence she attended a frat party the night of her abduction. Reyes is also a third year student. She is majoring in Civil Engineering. Her family lives in Puerto Rico so I don’t have their statements...” Velma shuffled through some papers. “Her friends said she was quiet and mostly kept to herself.” 

“I assume the police has ruled out most demographics at this point?” Fred asked.

“Correct. They have ruled out race, the dorms they live in, socioeconomic backgrounds, social circles. Pretty much everything except the fact that all of these women attend MIT.” 

“Are there any witnesses?” 

“In both the Udo and Bernard cases witnesses said they saw the women with...” Velma pulled out yet another stack of papers. “A white woman in her early twenties, medium height, average build, with blonde or light brown hair and either blue or green eyes. No one reported any identifying marks or clothing. No one recognized her as a student, either.” 

“There are, like, definitely not a million women who fit that description,” Shaggy said. 

“Thank you for the observation, Shag.” 

“This just doesn’t seem like our department. I’m all for, like, avoiding spooky, creepy mysteries but this seems like one for the police.” 

“Shaggy, are you really going to back out of our first case where the criminal isn’t wearing a ten dollar mask from a halloween store? This could be a big break for us!” Fred said. 

There was a knock at the door. 

“Come in!” Velma yelled. 

The door popped open and two familiar faces appeared. Both Daphne and Luna had enormous smiles on their faces. “Oh my god, guys, I’ve missed you so much!” Daphne threw her arms around Scooby and then hugged Shaggy, Fred, and Velma. 

“Daph, we’ve missed you, too. It’s so good to see you,” Fred said. “And Luna, and I had no idea Velma invited you to Boston, too. It’s been so long.” He leaned in for a somewhat awkward, one-armed hug. 

Luna walked over to the bed and hugged Velma and then sat down next to her. “Uh, well, Velma didn’t invite me exactly.”

“Yeah, uh, Luna goes to school here, too...” Velma scratched her head. “Actually, we’re, um, dating.” 

Luna and Velma looked at each other and back to the Gang, “Surprise?” 

The Gang broke out in a round of congratulations and questions about how long they had been dating and do the other Hex Girls know and so forth. If they hadn’t been gathered under such tragic circumstances it would have been a wonderful afternoon. 

“Alright, alright,” Velma said. “We can catch up on all of this over sushi and then head to the crime scenes.” 

The Gang arrived at the crime scene and were immediately stopped by a police officer. “I’m sorry, this is an active crime scene. I have to ask you to leave.” 

“We actually actually have clearance to be here. Velma Dinkley, Norville Rogers, Fred Jones, and Daphne Blake.” All four of them showed their IDs. 

The officer checked some paperwork and stepped forward to let them through. “Sorry about that, ma’am. Can’t be too careful. The dog has to stay on the other side of the tape, though.” 

“Rog, where?” Scooby asked. 

“Sorry, Scoob. You can hang with Luna.” 

Freddie knelt down and examined the ground marked. There was a small pool of dried blood and some splatter marks. “Clearly there was a struggle.” 

“The medical examiner said it wasn’t nearly enough blood to lead her to believe Reyes died. She also said it likely came from a blow to the head.”

“Did the other crime scenes have evidence of a struggle?” Daphne asked. 

“With Udo, yes. Bernard, no.” 

“Alright, so you’re the kidnapper and you want to take this woman but she starts to struggle. How did you keep her quiet from the middle of campus all the way to the street?” 

“Good thinking, Daph. The perp is probably armed!” 

Velma and Daphne looked at him. “Perp?”

“If we’re going to walk the walk then we better talk the talk.” 

They rolled their eyes at him. 

“Hey, guys, look at this.” Shaggy held up a piece of paper he pulled from under a bush. It was the corner from someone’s class notes.

“It looks like notes from an engineering course. They could be Reyes’.” 

“I’m not so sure, Freddie.” Velma grabbed the notes with tweezers, took a picture on her phone, and handed it to the forensics team. “We were in a study group together last semester. This doesn’t look like her handwriting at all.” 

“What are you thinking, Velma?” Daphne asked. 

“I’m not sure yet. We’ll know more after we visit the other crime scenes.” Velma turned back towards the police officer. “Excuse me, again, officer. Did you canvas the neighborhood to see if anyone caught the abduction on video?”

“We did. There’s a possibility they left in a dark pick-up truck but the video wasn’t clear.” 

“Thank you.” 

“Alright, Gang, let’s split up and search for clues,” Fred said. “Daphne and I will head to the Udo crime scene and Velma, Shaggy, and Scoob why don’t you head to the Bernard crime scene?” 

“Sounds good, Freddie,” Velma responded. 

The Gang headed off in separate directions, all doubtful they would be able to find something the police missed. Fred considered the worst for the women who had been abducted and Daphne tried to hope for the best. Velma knew deep down the result of this mystery may not be as positive as their previous jobs. Embezzlement was one thing. Jewel thieves were easy. But kidnapping? She wasn’t sure where this would end up. 

The three arrived at the Bernard crime scene. Footage from cameras nearby and a witness statement placed the abductions near an alleyway filled with trash. Police were still combing through the filth to see if they could find any evidence. While Velma was looking through the forensics team’s table something caught the corner of her eye. A woman was looking at the window of the apartment complex across the street and darted away from the window as soon as Velma met her gaze. 

“Wait here, Shaggy, I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Like, you don’t have to tell me twice,” he said, eyeing a falafel stand. Shaggy and Scooby lumbered over to the gentleman selling falafel and ordered an insane amount of food. As they walked away, he dropped a “Sold-Out” sign on the cart and started packing up for the day. Velma shook her head and walked towards the decrepit apartment complex. 

Once inside, she knocked on the door of the woman who had been looking out the window. The paint was chipping and the doorknob slightly rusted. She couldn’t imagine what Bernard had been doing in this area at all. 

The door creeped open as much as the chain lock would let it and a young woman looked through the crack. “Police?”

“No, no. Not at all. I saw you looking out the window and was hoping to ask you a question or two.”

“No police?”

Velma shook her head. “My lips are sealed.” 

The woman slowly undid the chain and let the door swing open. The apartment was small, just one room with a bathroom off the side. There were two small children huddled together on the bed in the corner who looked absolutely terrified of Velma. The woman said something to the children in a language she thought was Cantonese but she couldn’t be sure. 

“Did you see two women across the street a week ago? They may have been fighting or one of them may have appeared intoxicated?”

“I saw women, yes. Late at night when I walk home from work.” 

“Did you see where they went? Did they leave with someone else or in a car maybe?” 

“One woman push other woman in car.” 

“What did it look like?” 

“Dark and small. Look very old.” 

“Did you call the police?”

“No. No police.” She looked horrified. “I know they do something bad to woman.” 

“But you couldn’t call the police,” Velma responded. She patted the woman’s arm reassuringly. 

“But you not police. I can tell you. You tell police and they help woman. Please.”

“I will. Thank you.” 

Velma showed herself out and dialed Red Herring. “Hey, you should check the footage from the Bernard crime scene for dark colored sedans manufactured  
before... Start with 2006, maybe. See what turns up. I have to go.” 

“Any luck?” Fred asked once they all made their way back to Velma’s dorm room. 

“I found a witness who saw Bernard and presumably the female abductor get into a dark colored sedan,” Velma responded. “And Shaggy and Scooby located some suspiciously good soft pretzels.” 

“Reah!” 

“Like, man, I’d move here just for these,” Shaggy said, holding up a pretzel the size of his head. 

“Gang, I’ve got a plan.” Fred began scribbling like mad man on a piece of paper. “Okay, so Shaggy will get a wig and wear some of your clothes, Daph, and then act as bait for this woman. Now, there will be a tripwire here and when she crosses it it will pull down a net hanging out of this window here. At which point we can jump out from behind this bush and capture her.” 

The Gang stared at him with blank expressions. After a moment Daphne said, “Fred, do you hear yourself when you make these traps?”

“I’m going to be honest and say no. I get too caught up in the moment.” A tone of indignation crept into his voice. “Why, do you have a better plan?”

“Yes, actually. I will act as bait for the woman. We’ll pop in our bluetooth headphones or airpods or whatever and start a group call so we can keep in contact. I’ll follow her wherever she’s going and then Red Herring can arrest her.” 

The look of righteous indignation on Fred’s face was enough to make Shaggy, Velma, and Luna giggle. Rarely had anyone else suggested a trap. 

“That’s... a pretty good plan.” 

“No, it’s a terrible plan!” Shaggy exclaimed.

“C’mon, where’s your sense of adventure?” Luna asked. 

“Back in Coolsville! Tucked away in a closet where it belongs. I wanted to come here, have a few beers, smoke a joint, and hang out with my best friends. I  
didn’t want to hunt down people who are, like, armed and dangerous, or whatever.” 

“What are we doing with our lives?” Daphne snarked. “Pretty much nothing. We’re broke college students. Don’t you want to do something good?”

“I do but I don’t want to die doing it!” 

“You’re not going to die, Shaggy,” Velma assured him. “Just pretend it’s another creep in a mask.” He stared at her. “Would you do it for a Scooby-Snack?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Two Scooby-Snacks?”

“Like, no way, man.”

“Okay, I was saving these for a very special occasion.” Velma leaned out of her office chair and rifled through a cabinet. She pulled out a box of Scooby-Snacks with a masking tape label slapped over the front. “SPECIAL” it read in Sharpie. “Would you do it for... a cannabis Scooby-Snack?” 

His eyes narrowed and he continued staring at her hard for a moment. “...Yeah.” 

“Roh boy, roh boy, roh boy!” 

That evening the Gang met in the common where the woman had been spotted. Scooby and Shaggy, both comfortably stoned, crouched behind a bush where they could take photos of the women to help with identification. Fred parked himself on a bench with a coffee and pretended to be engrossed in something on his phone. Velma and Daphne seated themselves together in the middle of the common where they could keep an eye out for the kidnapper in question. 

They sat there for hours. 

But, just as the last shreds of sunlight were fading from the sky, the woman appeared. She was about as non-threatening as they come. She was shorter, average build, and blonde wearing a pink cable-knit sweater, blue jeans, and brown knee high boots. On closer inspection, she was clearly searching the common’s inhabitants for the ideal victim. Her gaze moved from woman to woman and landed on Daphne for a moment, considering. Daphne was beautiful and Velma had hypothesized she would make an ideal victim. 

Velma made a show of saying goodbye to Daphne, got up, and walked away. Then Daphne left the bench and walked towards the suspect, tripped, and fell, spilling her backpack everywhere.

“Oh my gosh, are you alright?” The woman asked her. 

“Yeah, yeah, I think so. Leave it to me to look like a klutz.” Daphne responded. She shuffled the papers and tried shoving them back in the bag. 

The woman started to help her. “My name’s Lisa,” she said, holding her hand out. 

“Anna,” Daphne lied and shook her hand. 

“Nice to meet you.” 

“So are you a student here?” 

“No, I was just visiting a friend who goes here.” 

“Alright, well, I should get going,” Daphne said. 

“Oh, hey, a friend of that friend is having a party tonight in an apartment off campus. I was on my way there. Would you want to come with me?” 

Daphne heard Fred’s voice in her ear, “We have pictures of her, Daph. Get out of there. I can follow her.” 

“Yeah! I’d love to go.” 

“Great.” 

“Like, what are you doing?” Shaggy hissed in Daphne’s ear. 

The gang was following behind the pair, slinking from bush to bush, and trying their damndest not to be seen. Fred, doing his best army crawl, was sliding along the cold ground on his stomach. His expression showed all the terrible things he feared would happen to his best friend if this went sideways. Velma was always the coolest under pressure and was using her GPS to calculate the most likely route the pair would take based on the previous abductions. 

Daphne started asking Lisa innocent-sounding questions. “So, do you live in the neighborhood?” 

“For now but I move around a lot.” 

“Oh, I bet you’ve seen all sorts of places! I would love to travel,” she gushed. 

“Yeah, it’s neat,” Lisa said absent-mindedly. “We’re just going to take a left around that corner.” 

“Do you travel with anyone? Maybe a boyfriend? Or girlfriend! No judgement.” Daphne was beginning to get nervous. The street lights were dim and the corner  
Lisa indicated was deserted. 

“Nope, just me.” 

“So, are we almost to the party?” 

“Just around that corner,” Lisa responded and her phone rang. It was clearly a burner phone with a generic background and ringtone. Daphne caught a glimpse of the number and, behind her back, used her fingers to signal the number to Velma. “Oh, this is my friend. Hey, we’re almost there. Yeah. I’m bringing a friend with me, hope you don’t mind. Yeah. See you in a minute.” 

“Daph, Red Herring is tracking your cell phone. Don’t let them take it from you,” Velma said. “And they’re running that phone number now.” 

Daphne and Lisa stepped around the corner and the Gang moved out of the shadows. Creeping along the side of the building they listened closely.

“Ris is roo dangerous,” Scooby said. 

“Yeah, like, I’m with Scooby. You need to abort mission Daphne.”

From around the corner they heard Daphne yell, “Hey!” followed by the slamming of a car door. The Gang raced around the corner only to a black, early 2000s sedan speeding away from the curb. They could see Lisa struggling to hold Daphne down in the backseat. Over their headphones they could hear the whole struggle. 

“Get the fuck off me!” Daphne screamed. 

“Stop struggling or we’ll have to drug you,” Lisa said, faintly in the background. 

The man driving the car said something unintelligible and shortly after, Daphne quieted.

Velma called Red back and said, “We have a license plate number for you.” 

By the time the police arrived on scene the car was long gone. Officers located Daphne’s phone a few streets over, which only gave them the vaguest idea of which way they went. 

“Don’t worry guys. We’re going to find her. We have an APB out on the car, techs are reviewing all traffic footage, and we have put checkpoints up throughout the city. They aren’t going to get very far. It would be better for you to head home and wait for my call, though. There’s nothing more to be done here,” Red said. 

Fred grabbed the front of his uniform. “Go home?! You ask us for help with this case, Daphne gets kidnapped by god-knows-who, and now you want us to go home?! Fuck you!” 

Shaggy dragged Fred off of Red Herring. “Like, man, this isn’t going to help. He’s right, there’s nothing more to do here.” 

“That doesn’t mean we can’t do anything. Let’s go,” Fred responded.

“Look, Fred, I know we don’t have the best history and I know this is a hard time but --”

“Don’t.” Fred held up his hand. “We’re going to go do your job for you.” 

The Gang reached the area where Daphne’s phone had been found. It was smashed in a puddle along with her backpack. 

“Do you smell anything, Scoob?” Shaggy asked. 

“R’I’m rot sure,” He said, nose to the ground. He sniffed his way down the rest of the street and came to a stop. Suddenly, he pointed. “Rat a-ray.” He darted down the street and found a Scooby-Snack in the middle of the road. 

“A Scooby-Snack?” 

“Daphne must be throwing them out of the car right now.”  
Scooby continued to follow the trail of Scooby-Snacks down unlit side streets into the industrial part of town. Eventually, they came to what looked to be an abandoned warehouse. It was dark, the windows had been smashed, and there was graffiti covering most of the brick surface. 

More importantly, there was the car. No one was in it but Daphne’s scarf rested on the back seat with a small amount of blood. 

The Gang crept up to the building slowly. The upper levels were filthy but empty. It appeared this building hadn’t been used in years but Fred knew better. 

“Look at that,” He said, pointing to a door inside the building. Shaggy and Velma peered over the window ledge. “The door is rusted out but the doorknob and hinges are new.” 

“Nice catch, Freddie.” 

“We, like, can’t go in that way. It’ll be like knocking on the front door,” Shaggy said. 

“You’re right. There has to be another way,” Velma said. 

“Alright Gang, let’s split up and look for clues. Velma, with me. Shaggy and Scooby check around the other side.”

“Like, we found a fire door. But we don’t know where it will lead,” Shaggy reported.

“No time like the present,” Fred said. “C’mon Gang, let’s go save Daphne.” 

The three of them managed to pry open the door enough to slip through into a darkened hallway. Old offices and break rooms stood empty in the eerie quiet. 

“We must be two floors above where they’re holding Daphne,” Velma said. 

“We better find our way down then.”

“Isn’t this a better job for the police?” Shaggy asked. 

“We don’t know what could happen to her between now and when they’ll get here,” Fred responded, already making his way towards the staircase. 

The Gang made their way down a rusty staircase and through the old work floor. They could hear muffled voices from below. Velma would never admit it but she was absolutely terrified. Shaggy, on the other hand, was proclaiming his fear every other step. 

On the bottom level were two guards with guns visible at their sides. The scene behind them if what made the Gang take a step back, horrified. There were ten cages like those you would see in a dog kennel and they all held terrified, half-dressed women. Some of them were laying on the floor, some were staring into space like zombies, and others were curled into balls in the back of the cages. Daphne was grabbing onto the chain-link and rattling it, shouting all sorts of nasty things at the woman who had kidnapped her. Her cheek was swollen and bruised where she had clearly been punched in the face and she had a nasty cut across her forehead. Other than that, she didn’t seem any worse for the wear. 

“Like, now what?” Shaggy asked. 

“We could create a distraction to get those guards to move away from the door,” Freddie responded. 

“That could work,” Velma said, finger on her chin. 

Footsteps echoed down the hallway they dashed into the nearest room. It was the man, presumably the one who had been driving the car. “Natalia!”

“Lisa” took her cigarette from her mouth. “What do you want?” 

“The buyer will be here soon. We need to meet him out front. Bring that girl. The bitch with the blonde hair.” 

Velma watched as she pulled a set of keys and a gun from her desk. She put her cigarette back in her mouth before unlocking the cage which held a dirty, beat up Alicia Bernard. Natalia grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to her feet, gun to her head. “You’re going to behave, understand?”  
Alicia nodded and began crying. Natalia tossed the keys back on the desk and dropped her cigarette on the floor, putting it out with the heel of her boot. 

“Jimmy, come with us. We’ve never met this guy before.”

“Yes, Boss,” one of the guards responded. 

The man, Natalia, Alicia, and the guard walked up the stairs to the door, leaving just one guard. 

Fred let out a long breath when the door shut above them. “Okay, Gang. I have a plan. Shag and Scoob, go upstairs and make as much noise as you can. We’ll  
see if we can distract the guard and get him to go upstairs. Velma and I will let the women out.” 

“And if they shoot you?” Shaggy asked, incredulous. 

“They won’t,” Fred said. 

“Like hell they won’t!”

“This is for Daph, Shaggy.” 

“Fine,” Shaggy said. The pair crept up the stairs and Fred and Velma waited for the signal. 

Five minutes later, they heard the sound of a howling dog and a loud metal clang from overhead. The guard cast a glance upstairs but continued looking at his phone. The noise got louder and he looked at the girls nervously and then back upstairs. Finally, he peeled himself from the door frame and made his way towards the back entrance.

“Go!” Velma hissed. “Red says five minutes.” 

Velma pulled her lock picking kit from her skirt pocket and Fred grabbed the keys from the desk. They unlocked the cages one by one and helped the women out. Some of the women were coherent and some could barely stand on their own. 

“I think they’re drugged,” Velma said. 

“Freddie! Velma!” Daphne cried. 

“Shhhh!” Velma responded. “We missed you, too. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but she isn’t.”

In the last cage was Ofelia, badly beaten and unconscious. Fred picked her up and the group started towards the exit. 

“Was she unconscious when you got here?” Velma asked. 

“Yes,” Daphne replied. 

“How long has she been unconscious?” Velma asked the nearest woman. She was a red-haired girl of maybe 19, dressed in a bra, fishnet shirt, and short skirt. 

“A-a-all day...” She responded. 

Velma checked her pupils. “This is not good. We need to get her out of here now.” She tried to call Red for an ambulance but there was no service in the closed off hallway. 

“They told me she was forcibly injecting them with heroin,” Daphne said and shivered. “To make them more... compliant.”

Overhead, they heard the sound of sirens and gunfire. Shaggy called for them to come upstairs and they shuffled into a room, peering out the window. Natalia and her goons had been surrounded by the Boston Police Department. In one last act of desperation, Natalia shoved the guard towards the police and turned and ran back towards the building. Scooby turned and came bounding towards her, an uncharacteristic act of bravery, and leapt towards her, snarling. She was unable to withstand 120 pounds of Great Dane and fell to the ground as Scooby bared his teeth over her throat. 

“You rook my ‘riend,” he growled, snapping his teeth at her. 

Red came into the building, gun drawn. “It’s alright Scooby,” he said. “I’ve got her.” He pulled her to her feet and handcuffed her in one smooth movement. 

“I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling kids! And that dog!” She screamed, kicking at Scooby. 

Scooby turned and bounded toward Daphne, pushed her to the ground, and began licking her face. “Raphne!” 

She laughed. “I missed you, too, Scooby.” 

Fred handed Ofelia to a paramedic and pulled Daphne from the floor into his arms. “I thought I lost you for a minute.” 

“So did I,” she responded, hugging him back. 

Velma and Shaggy pulled the pair into their arms and all let out a few tears of relief. 

“Well, Gang, looks like we’ve solved another mystery,” Fred said. 

A week after the Gang had returned to their prospective lives, Fred burst into the apartment. Shaggy, startled, dropped an entire watering can on the floor. 

“Like, man, what now?”

“I dropped out of Triple C!” Fred exclaimed.

“And that’s... good?”

“We’re going into business together, Shag!”

“Um, we are?”

Fred handed him a freshly printed business card that read: Fred Jones, Jr. Private Detective. Mystery, Inc. We’ll take that mystery off your hands!

**Author's Note:**

> Case Number: #0  
> Date: 1/29/2020  
> Status: Solved


End file.
